Listening to Obama once more, my friend Heather pointed out that his is a perpetually positive framework. His rhetoric is based in values gleaned from American cultural mythology he simplistically simplifies– American exceptionalism, the frontier, immigration and opportunity and equality and freedom. Progressives rightfully critique him for this simplification, and for a rhetoric of exceptionalism that ignores the complexities and culpabilities and moral ambiguities of hegemony and late capitalism– drones in Syria, civilian deaths, perpetual war, deportation, ongoing structural and racial inequality, incarceration, economic inequality. The same progressives, formed most recently into the avatar of Bernie Sanders, dislike Hillary for being ‘corrupt’, which is to say, being explicitly a part of the hierarchies of influence, power, and wealth, or to put more kindly, necessarily compromised by the pragmatism and ethical quagmires of governance and politics. (I also would say that view may be compounded/ exacerbated by latent sexism– but that argument has been made, and will continue to be, elsewhere). At any rate, what Obama’s speech made me realize, especially reflecting on their head-to-head in ’08, was how Hillary’s political appeal has been limited by her gender and lack of rhetorical framework (Don’t believe me about gender? I heard very few clamoring to jail Bill or label him a bitch, though his sins would seem to outstrip HRC’s in every way). Senator Clinton never reaches for the marble of our cultural mythology, perhaps because it is not natural to her, and perhaps because in her own way she is more focused, or even, more honest in a way– she does not invoke or rhetoricize, she just tries to be upbeat, strong, and tough. I will miss Obama’s character, temperment, and intellectual bent, his rhetorical sophistication, and his inclusive, invigorating, hopeful calls to unity. The Merican cultural myths, which gloss so much over, I could do without-‘ America is rarely a shining city on a hill, light to all nations, and we are as much fascist, racist, classist, sexist, xenophobic Trump as anything else, it seems just now. But I hope Hillary finds her own positive framework, and realizes her own voice and rhetorical register tonight. Even if false or hypocritical or compromised, I would rather hold President HRC’s reluctant feet to the fire to seek progress that would burnish her historic status and long-term reputation, than I would want to live for even a day in Trump’s throneroom.
(posted from Facebook)
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